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Twelve crewmates were aboard the Ursa, a beautiful space vessel meant for transporting energy crystals across the Andromeda Galaxy. Mechanics, administrators, scientists, tech support, the obligatory medic, and of course the captain of the ship, were all assigned on a mission transporting the valuable resource.
“Well, it’s official. The world’s gone mad.”
Captain Brown turned to their colleague and asked, “What? Did the crew try grape jelly pasta again? I already said there isn’t any official restriction on that so we can’t stop them.”
With a huff Orange replied, “No, they’re delaying all current inflight ships due to the ‘imposter hysteria.’”
“Is that like the thing where you don’t believe you are actually good at your job or something? What do they call that?”
“No, that’s imposter syndrome. The hysteria is over this alien species that finds its way onto ships and starts killing crewmates. Which sounds terrible, but—”
Pink butted into the conversation, “Yeah and it sounds so awful! You know, Green and Lime were the only survivors of their last mission where there was an imposter.”
“Hold up,” Orange took hold of the conversation again, “there is no way they survived these ‘imposters’ if—”
“What? Do you think Green and Lime are weak or something?”
“No, it’s just that—”
“Then you should believe them.”
The captain considered the situation as Orange and Pink continued to bicker and came to a decision. “With that in mind, I think we ought to stop the ship and do a search, just to make sure there are none aboard.”
“Sir that’s going to be a problem.”
“No it won’t, we can just drift to this dwarf planet after cutting the engines.”
“It’s not about the sudden stop, it’s the search.”
Without waiting to hear out Orange’s concerns, Pink handed White a paper and White made an announcement into the intercom. “Good 16:26 crewmates of the majestic Ursa! Finish up your current task as soon as possible. A mandatory meeting will be held in the cafeteria at approximately 16:40 or in 9 minutes. See you there.”
Orange crossed her arms and stayed silent as White assisted Captain Brown in setting the course to the dwarf planet he had mentioned. The administration staff, minus Orange who remained in the bridge claiming they had a headache, made their way to the cafeteria where they sat down at a table near the giant glass wall that let them see into the void of space.
Once all of the five mechanics, two scientists, and medical staff were accounted for, the captain began the meeting. Pink took the minutes from a spot on the table nearest to the window as he spoke. “As some of you may have already felt, we have changed course. There has been an order to immediately stop our ship due to imposters. As a precaution, Pink and myself have decided that a check for imposter-like traits on all of the crew is necessary as a precautionary measure. Any questions?”
“Doesn’t that violate like 4 of our crewmate rights?” Cyan, the resident medic, asked from the back of the group.
Captain Brown knew that this accusation would come, so he, as always, had a speech prepared. “When all of you came aboard this ship you made an oath to the galactic community to uphold any safety measures deemed necessary for the wellbeing of your fellow crewmates aboard this ship and crewkind as a whole. I do believe that just doing a quick checkup is more than within the bounds of that promise, especially if it can prevent another situation such as what happened to Green and Lime’s former crew. Think of it like checking for lice.”
The scientific department, if you could call two people an entire department, whispered back and forth and then Blue spoke up as well for the two of them, “And what exactly is that story? Am I the only one out of the loop?”
Murmurs from Purple, Red, and Yellow came as Green and Lime started sweating with the attention suddenly pushed on them.
“I think a retelling of the story is in order. Lime, Green, I have even forgotten some details since you last told us, so do you mind letting us hear it again? For Blue and Black’s sake?” the captain requested.
Pink began shaking her head as she focused on recording Green and Lime’s story in the meeting minutes:
Item 3:
Green and Lime Imposter Incident Retelling
-Location: Skeld Space Vessel Model 458
-Mission: Transport of Plant Specimens to Mira HQ
-10 killed, 2 survivors
-Red crewmate imposter identified and disposed of for protection
-Imposter identification methods: “sus” activities, sneaking off, weapons, taking along time to complete tasks, stalling
Without much more protest after the story was retold and a whole bunch of sympathy was shown, Cyan began setting up medical equipment. As he was doing this, the crew was free to converse amongst themselves.
“Hey, wasn’t the imposter Orange the last time they told that story?” Purple asked his roommate, Red.
“Yeah I thought so. I would have remembered if it was a red crewmate for obvious reasons.”
Yellow nodded along to the conversation and spoke to the two, “Maybe we should keep an eye out for them, because an imposter wouldn’t know the story exactly and would lie to cover it up.”
Red began brainstorming with her, “Yeah, and they’d ask questions to make it easier. We should try to figure out who the imposter...or imposters on this ship are with that in mind.”
“Brilliant,” replied Purple as they began discussing what imposters were among them.
Eventually they had a list along with the reasons:
- Green and Lime: unable to keep their story straight, lying, could have been successful imposters from their last mission and came to this ship to wreak havoc again
- Cyan and Blue: stalling, asking too many questions
- Black: Conspiring with Blue
- Brown and Pink: might have said to check people to cover up being imposters themselves
- Orange: didn’t show up to the meeting to get checked
On the other side of the room, Cyan had finished setting up. “Captain Brown, which department am I checking first?”
Purple spoke up before the captain had a chance to speak. “Before we do the check up, I just want to bring attention to some details of Lime and Green’s story.” With everyone’s attention now on Purple, the three mechanics explained the discontinuity.
Red finished up, “...and no one would forget such an important detail of the most traumatic day of their life.”
Green and Lime stood paralyzed with fear at being caught. Lime, with a guilty look on their face, spoke first. “Yes, I know our story doesn’t add up." Ignoring the betrayed look on Green's visor, Lime continued, "And the reason for that is, well, it never happened.”
The whole room let out a gasp.
“Lime, let’s not be so hasty to say none of that happened. There was an imposter on the ship.”
“No, Green. We thought there was an imposter on the ship. We didn’t actually know.”
The most shocked crewmate of all, Pink, immediately asked, “Then what happened to your crew? The whole ship was destroyed and covered in blood according to the official report!”
“Yeah, that was us. We did that to our crew when we thought that they could be an imposter and we were wrong every time and had to try to hide the bodies. That was until we had two crewmates left besides us two and, well, that meant for sure that one had to be the imposter, right? And double imposter sightings were talked about so perhaps they were working together to make the investigation extra hard for us? We were so wrong, but it was the only way to justify our actions. So, we shoved them into space and we never saw Orange’s or Red’s blood, so we assumed we made the right decision finally. We agreed to never speak of the massacre aboard the Skeld ever again and pinned it on those two, but rationalizing this has only served to eat me up inside as I try to go to sleep at night. It hasn’t been worth it at all, and I will take any punishment the law sees fit for this disgusting crime.”
“Their lying! Lime is lying!” Green screeched as he held his hands over his ears, panic clear on his face. An idea comes to his mind. “Imposter!”
“No. You wouldn’t.” Lime stares at Green in horror.
“Lime’s been replaced by an imposter! I was going to ask them about memory loss later, but it’s become clear to me now that that is not my old friend. Lime would never say our experience was fake! Or tell such a horrible story!” After a moment more, Green added, “And! And notice how throughout Lime’s story they made it clear that they weren’t an imposter and killed all those people and is trying to drag me down with him! Aha! Yeah, only an imposter would try to bring someone down with them like this while keeping themselves out of suspicion! Any punishment the law would give us would be better than being killed like we’d do if we suspected you were and imposter.”
Sounds of uncertainty went through the room
“Green. This is ridiculous. We got caught, fess up.”
“NO!”
“That’s enough from the both of you!” Captain Brown yelled over them. “You both are being detained until we figure out what to do. Yellow, Black, get Green. Red, help me with Lime.” Green struggled like a desperate animal to escape their hold, but wasn’t strong enough while Lime walked peacefully to the air lock.
The crew eventually made a decision. Red, Yellow, and Purple led the discussion. If Lime was right, they were both murderers and unsafe to keep aboard. If Lime was lying about Green and he had acted alone, then Green was innocent and clearly traumatized by his crewmate’s actions and could have been going along with the story for so long out of fear. But Lime confessing makes that scenario less likely. Green’s claim that Lime was an imposter made Green innocent as well on its own, but if Lime was acting alone and Green was innocent before he wasn’t now after making his imposter accusation in an attempt to kill Lime. Nothing made sense and in the end the crew, confused and high on emotions, sent both of them into the void.
As time went on, more and more accusations were made as the three went down the list. Blue and Black had abstained from the vote, which was interpreted as them stalling for time. Into the void they went. After successfully leading the killing of four of their fellow crewmates, the distressed crew felt that keeping Red, Yellow, and Purple aboard wasn’t safe either as they were masters of manipulation, something that Yellow had pointed out was an imposter trait. No counter argument was taken into consideration after the manipulation point was put out there and the three were flushed out among the stars.
The four crewmates left in the room, Cyan, Pink, White, and Captain Brown looked at the list Red, Purple, and Yellow had left behind and were astonished to see both Pink and Brown’s name on their suspect list.
“Well, that’s just crazy! We wouldn’t have been against getting checked if asked.” Captain Brown reasoned as he sent a look to Pink.
She agreed, saying, “Of course we would have been fine with that. What was going through their minds?”
“That’s what a pair of imposters would say.” Cyan stood from their seat and backed away in fear as White started to move to restrain the two.
“What? Come on, it’s ridiculous! No! Please, don’t!”
Nothing more was heard from the two after the airlock released them and White and Cyan sat in silence.
“So, guess we’re the last ones left then,” White tried to make conversation.
“Yeah.” Several minutes passed and they stared at the stars. “I wonder if this was how Green and Lime felt once they were alone.”
“You really believed Green’s version?”
“Well, I don’t think Lime’s story came out of nowhere, but I don’t think they were deranged murderers.”
“Oh.”
“Well, it looks like neither of us were the imposter since neither of us has tried to kill the other yet and we’ve been alone for over five minutes.”
White stood abruptly and started to approach Cyan.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey? What are you doing?”
“You were trying to convince me you couldn’t be the imposter by not killing me immediately, weren’t you?”
“What? No! White, stop!”
“And you were the one to bring up being alone. I can’t believe you, imposter! And you could have gotten away with it if you had just kept your mouth shut.”
Cyan began running out of the cafeteria in a crazed panic. They ran and ran until they made it back to the cafeteria again and spotted something moving. Something...orange.
“Orange! Orange! Help! White is trying to shove me out of the airlock!” Cyan screamed for their friend.
“Cyan? What’s going on?” Orange said quickly, grabbing them and closing the hall door.
White yelled out, “Get back here imposter!” They slammed into the closed door in a rage and then stopped, presumably going around to another entrance.
“White thinks I’m an imposter,” Cyan said with tears streaming down their face.
“What? Cyan, don’t tell me that’s why I haven’t seen anyone else on the ship.”
Cyan sniffled and replied, “They’re gone, Orange.” She pointed to the window and Orange froze in shock at the bodies drifting around outside.
“Oh my god.” Orange collapsed to her knees. “I should have been there. I should have been at the meeting!”
“I don’t know if you would have been able to stop them, Orange. Everyone seemed so manipulative, and you might have been among those corpses too at the rate they were being shoved out.”
Orange softly cried as she explained, “Cyan, no. I...I could have let them all know that imposters aren’t even real.” She pulled up a screen on her watch and showed Cyan the report they were given, too choked up to for speak herself.
Attention! All in-flight space vessels, if
there is talk about ‘imposters’ on your ship,
halt all progression at once. This PSA is
lifesaving as it disproves this dangerous rumor
spread about the Skeld Model 458, Flight 0096
and their ‘imposter’ incident. ‘Imposters’ are not
a real alien creature and are a work of fiction.
Functions to remain as normal after the rumor
has been properly handled, thank you for your
continued cooperation.
“I shouldn’t have even let them hold the meeting, Cyan. I thought it would be a funny little scare, not this!” She gestured to the crewmates outside.
“I know, Orange, I know you didn’t intend for this to happen.” Cyan comforted Orange the best she could until they were both tackled to the ground.
“Orange, stand back! Cyan is the imposter!” White yelled.
“White, stop. Cyan isn’t an imposter. No one was!”
“Ah, so she had you fooled too. Or maybe you were both conspiring while I was gone.” White opened the room for the airlock before he continued. “I guess it doesn’t really matter anymore anyway.”
White ran and tried to grab the two of them but was shoved into the room themself. Orange rushed to shut the door before White could get back into the cafeteria.
“What do we do now?” Cyan asked as they listened to White slam themself against the door to try and escape the room.
“I don’t know. They’ll run out of oxygen in there since it’s airtight if we leave them in there.”
“And they’ll kill us if we let them in or if they find a way out.”
The two tried to brainstorm a way where no one had to die, but they wouldn’t be able to get extra help since the nearest base was 20 days out from the dwarf planet they were approaching, and the oxygen would only last a maximum of 5 hours at the rate White was punching at the door and yelling. There was no way to pump oxygen into the room either.
They settled on trying to explain to White through the door and sending them a copy of the announcement. If they still thought Cyan was an imposter, then they would let him suffocate and dispose of the body and blame it on the hysteria instead of their direct actions even if it was in self-defense. They both agreed that it wasn't worth the risk.
Hours passed and they made no progress with White. And after 6 long hours of wasted effort White had been silent for 90 minutes.
“Please, White, if you’re still alive please tell us. We want to let you in as much as you want to be in, but not if you’re going to kill us.” Cyan said through the door, voice raspy from talking for so long.
There was no reply.
Orange shed a tear as she pushed the button to let White’s corpse out into the void as the ship approached Dwarf 9876G-327. Cyan and Orange didn’t talk much as they tried to get a signal to open communications with Mira Headquarters.